Vinca as a Landscaping Groundcover Solution

Let’s face it, not even six inches below your lawn is sand and that makes things very difficult to grow sometimes. Landscapers can bring in truckload after truckload of top soil, fertilize for optimum conditions, and grass will still not grow with acceptable coverage.

Enter Vinca, a viney subshrub that can cover the problem area without requiring 100% of the area’s soil to support growth.

Vinca, or common periwinkle, is an evergreen plant that is commonly used as groundcover due to its potential for thick growth into a carpet of trailing stems with beautiful periwinkle blue flowers that bud during spring.

Its durability is considerable, as long as it is given shade and is not allowed to dry out. Two varieties of this plant, Vinca Major and Vinca Minor, can be used depending on your specific needs.

Vinca Major is for tall, wild growth, as it hits a height of up to eighteen inches and spreads considerably. In contrast, Vinca Minor grows to around six inches tall, with a much smaller footprint. Both varieties work well with shade-loving shrubs such as azaleas, and perennials like Hosta Lilies that need to emerge during spring.

HGTV’s Landscape Designer for “Dig In,” William Moss, used Vinca to solve inconsistent grass growth at a small suburban town-home where the grass was patchy and would not grow to full coverage. He tore out the old grass, mulched the bare soil to aid against unwanted weeds, laid out the Vinca a couple feet apart, and used a hand trowel to plant each one. The mulching will be covered over time by the sprawling periwinkle, with little maintenance necessary.

If you have inconsistent or patchy grass and want to find a suitable solution to this problem, contact us for information on using Vinca or another ground-covering solution.